Starter Kit. Idea 64 of 500. Cluster 3
Natural stones: a small Ceylon sapphire, garnet or moonstone in a sealed card with its laboratory report, at a price a tourist will pay
The mechanism, from the book
The Zermatt water bottle. Sigiriya has not got a stone with its own name on it.
The first step
Get three small certified stones, a sapphire, a garnet and a moonstone, from a dealer you trust, and mount each in a sealed card with its laboratory report. Offer them at a hotel shop or guesthouse for two weeks at a price set for a tourist. Sales, and the questions visitors ask, show whether the sealed card solves the trust problem.
- Who pays first
- Visitors who want a real stone as a keepsake but fear being cheated, and who trust a sealed card with a report inside.
- What leaves today
- Fear of fakes stops many visitors buying gems at all; a sealed, certified card turns that fear into a retail sale on the island.
Ask first
- National Gem and Jewellery Authority. Ask what licence selling small stones to tourists needs, and how reports are issued.
- Sri Lanka Customs. Ask what a tourist must show to take a small stone home.
Check before you spend
That every stone has a genuine laboratory report, that you hold the right gem licence, and what papers a tourist needs at departure.
Find out these three numbers
- What will a tourist pay for a small stone with its report?
- What does a laboratory report cost for one small stone?
- How many stones a month can you buy at a steady quality?
A comparison from the book
Switzerland. Chapter Sixteen
"And the sapphires. The papers that make a Ceylon sapphire worth what it is worth are"
The papers make the stone's worth, so make the report part of the product.
The test
Does it keep value that now leaves the island, or build the proof that lets somebody else do so?
From the appendix of Why Not Sri Lanka? by Dr Maheshika Halbeisen. The idea and the mechanism are the book's; this kit was written for the site.